In midst of civil war, earthquake leaves Syrians across frontlines with shared catastrophe

On one side of Syria's civil war, a man in army fatigues carried a lifeless child’s ashen body from the rubble of a shattered building in the government-held city of Hama.

Across a frontline on another side of Syria, a rescue worker in the white helmet and black-yellow vest of the Syrian civil defence carried a young girl, shaken but alive, from the rubble of her home in rebel-held Azaz.

Both witnessed by Reuters journalists, the scenes that unfolded in the hours after an earthquake devastated Syria and Turkey on Monday were similar, though the uniforms clearly located the rescuers on opposing sides of the conflict that has splintered the country.

“The earthquake shook opposition-held and regime-held areas.  I support the Syrian revolution with all my heart, but I care for my people,” Ramadan Suleiman, 28, said by phone, expressing sympathy for civilians living in government areas.

“I’m a human, they’re human. We felt for those in Turkey and feel the same when it happens in other places like Europe. That’s humanity,” said Suleiman, who was displaced to Idlib from Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria during the war.

The quake death toll in Syria stands at more than 1,800, with many people believed to be trapped under rubble.

Rescue workers said 1,020 were killed in the rebel-held northwest. State media said at least 812 people died in government-held areas including Aleppo, Latakia, Hama and Tartous.

The disaster has compounded misery in a country where hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in a conflict that started in 2011 when protests against President Bashar al-Assad's rule were met with a deadly crackdown.

“This is the last thing the country needed. It's a country that is inhabited by death,” said Hassan Hussein from the coastal city and government stronghold of Tartous.

With millions uprooted by the war, the UN said humanitarian needs are today greater than ever, even though the main frontlines have been frozen for several years. With UN-backed diplomacy going nowhere, Syria remains deeply divided.

In the rebel-held city of Atareb, Yousef Haboush lamented how the quake had forced many from their homes yet again.

“On top of displacement from our towns and after we finally found homes there is  another displacement,” said Haboush, who fled from Damascus at the height of the conflict.

People across Syria have faced another shared threat in recent times: an outbreak of cholera which has thrived in the devastation wrought by conflict.

In the mountains above Latakia near Assad's hometown, residents said several buildings had collapsed and there were many dead. Russian troops, civil defence and government forces assisted in a swift relief effort, two residents said.

One resident, Abu Hamid, said he felt a sense of “proximity” to other Syrians, including those in rebel-held areas.

“It may be the first time it happens in a long time,” he said.

“The earthquake did not discriminate.” 

Reuters